If you hang out with old-school sales pros from the natural products industry, you will often encounter a belief that distribution (in the suitable locales and channels) is all you need to grow with an ‘incremental’ product. They are used to low EBITDA businesses that
‘Tis the season of pumpkin-flavored everything, folks. Most of it is inedible in my experience. Some of it, though, is amazing. If you’ve been mulling over whether or not to add seasonal flavors to your UPC mix as an early-stage brand, this post is for
It’s the time of year when you’re preparing next year’s plan, I hope. As you move farther up the Ramp, though, the risk of losing focus grows. Why? Well, now you have the cash to entertain all manner of distractions you quickly ignored early on: adding lots
I have the privilege of advising some of the brightest entrepreneurs out there in CPG today. Yet, intelligence alone (IQ) does not prevent a founder or her team from literally becoming blind to very likely, but negative interpretations of her brand’s KPIs. Again and again and
Those who follow me closely may have noticed that I practice virtually all the central tenets of my best-selling book in my professional services practice. My own business has been growing exponentially because I did the following: 1. Wrote and self-published a book - badly needed
I’m not a clinical psychologist; let’s be clear. That said, entrepreneurs do tend to skew strongly toward narcissistic behavior (in the latest research). This is a learned pattern of interpreting social life in a constant source of positive feedback. That’s how I see it as
Many have forgotten how Walmart, specifically, their Supercenter format provided mainstream CPG a single retail account that generated double-digit revenue growth for years in the 1990s and 2000s. It was a bargain with the Devil, though, because it compressed net margins for those brands by
The premium food/beverage/alcohol space grew at a pace last year not seen since 2006. Let that sink in a bit. And ever since 2006, the sector has been steadily decelerating, though still growing in both market share and absolute $ sales (and ahead of inflation). See the
You will most likely accumulate tons of negative feedback about your brand over the years unless you are the next SkinnyPop and found a gaping, ‘easy’ innovation hole in a sleepy category managed by the arrogant (at the time, at least). The key is finding the
For years, I’ve talked about having a 1-Page Strategic Plan, which contains your one-line competitive strategy and outlines the critical playbook you are testing to drive exponential growth for your business. I even gave away my template to another 20 folks last month at my quarterly Riding